NEW DELHI, Oct 14: Hundreds of rightwing Hindu militants raided the Taj Mahal on Sunday disfiguring its white marble walls with graffiti which archeological officials said could still be repaired.

The newspapertoday.com site said: “The monument of love became a victim of vandalism as the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha members descended upon the Taj Mahal complex, raising slogans of ‘Jai Sri Ram’ and ‘Vande Mataram’.”

The online newspaper of the India Today group said the youth were taking a break from their two-day national council meeting in Agra where vitriolic speeches against Muslim terrorists marked both days.

The newspaper said the crowd at the conference centre had applauded rightwing Hindu rabble-rousers but when Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajapyee began to calm the tempers with his familiar moderation, they began to leave.

Analysts said the two-day meeting organized by the Rahstriya Swayamsevak Sangh and some of its political outfits was meant to kick off the election campaign in Uttar Pradesh. The polls are due any time before March next year, but are widely believed to be called later this year.

“The youth flouted security rules, harassed the guards and defaced the Taj in white marble,” the newspaper said.

It was only on Saturday evening that Union Minister Pramod Mahajan expressed his “sadness” at the party not being able to build a grand Ram Temple in Ayodhya. Mahajan’s agony had fired up party youth into raising the slogans like “Bachha Bachha Ram ka, Janmabhomi ke kaam ka”.

It was a picnic for them to avail of the time between the inauguration of the convention by Home Minister L. K. Advani on Saturday morning and conclusion of the programme by Vajpayee on Sunday evening, the newspaper which generally supports the BJP government, said.

Some of the vandals even carried musical instruments into Taj premises and danced to the beats of popular Hindi songs. “What is the harm in having some fun along with work,” said a Yuva Morcha worker from Bihar. Most of them got themselves photographed with the Taj while a section of younger lot scribbled their names and addresses on the white marble.

Besides the security officials of Taj Mahal, those who were harassed by these BJP workers were foreign tourists. “Even Shahjahan and Mumtaj (Mumtaz) Mahal would have never imagined the contempt brought to their resting place,” said a visitor from South India. Most of the BJP workers visiting Taj seemed to be drawn from northern and western parts of the country.

Security officers on the other hand would rather like to forget the day. “It will take us weeks to offset the damage done to the mausoleum today,” said Prem Singh, chief security officer.

The BJP cadre seemed inspired by their former youth wing president and Sports Minister Uma Bharti’s “fiery” speech against terrorism. “The US has announced it would take on countries that harbour terrorists. In my opinion, the religion which promotes terrorism definitely gets destroyed,” the rabble-rousing Bharti said.

The 17th century monument which formed the background for the India-Pakistan summit in July, has been threatened by militants of many a faith over the last few years after which night visits to the Taj Mahal were stopped.